A Slip of a Finger
by readme-silly
Summary: A small altercation to the Narutoverse results in Naruto having to fight Gaara in the Chuunin Exam Finals. What will he do, knowing he lacks the skill to win?
1. Chapter 1

**Konoha: Chuunin Exams; Preliminary Rounds  
><strong>

**Uzumaki Naruto vs Inuzuka Kiba**

Sometimes the most insignificant of things can have the greatest of impacts.

You'd probably think putting your keys on the chair instead of the table won't change much, because in the end you'll still pick them up when you need them.

In mostly the same line of reasoning, Naruto didn't think much of it when he thrust his left hand into the pouch behind him, strapped to his hip, to feel for a smoke bomb that he might be able to use to his advantage against Kiba, who was now running full tilt at the blond, on all fours.

'Oh, yeah! Smoke bombs don't work on Kiba, he can smell me right through them!'

Naruto then drew his hands together to make his favorite seal for kage bunshin, but the damage had already been done.

ooo

At the end of the preliminaries, the cloth bag was passed around for the remaining participants to pick a number from within. This was done to determine who would fight who in the coming matches.

When Naruto's turn came around, he enthusiastically reached to put in his right hand, out of habit, but then remembered Hinata's blood on it that he had yet to wash off.

Chuckling nervously while the other participants watched, slightly disgusted, he instead put his left hand into the bag.

If you remember correctly, that same hand was earlier pushed into his pouch, gaining some of the heat from the small enclosure of leather which had been right next to Naruto's over-working body. That small bit of heat was retained for a while, sustained by his own body's warmth, so when Naruto put the hand into the bag, a light sheen of sweat developed on his forefinger and thumb, causing the digits to slip off the paper he had just been about to pick.

'Eh?' thought the blond. 'I was sure I had that one… Oh well!'

He simply proceeded to grab the next one, pinching it tightly to make sure it also didn't slip away as well as he withdrew his hand from the bag.

ooo

"Alright, call out your numbers, starting with you." Hayate pointed to the gennin nearest to him.

"Three." called the stoic, homicidal Gaara.

"Seven."

"Two."

"Nine."

"Five."

"Eight."

"Six."

"…"

*COUGH!* "Uzumaki-san," Hayate really didn't appreciate the stalling. He was starting to get tired after having to stand for so long.

"Eh?" Naruto looked up from where he was, having been preoccupied with wiping his overly-sweaty palm off on his grimy, orange trouser leg. The other exam participants all shook their heads disbelievingly. This buffoon had actually made it to the finals?

"Uuuuh…" Naruto peered at his piece of paper and read the number loudly.

"Four!"

*COUGH!* "Thank you…" Hayate then proceeded to fill in the second-to-last number on the clipboard in his hand. The last number had supposedly been picked by Sasuke who was absent due to specific reasons.

"Alright, the matches for the finals will be in this order, Hyuuga Neji versus Uchiha Sasuke…"

The chuunin and some of the jounin present suddenly broke into excited whispers. Two clan geniuses going at each other in the finals? This was going to be the match of the century!

Naruto, however, pouted in disappointment. He'd wanted to be the one to face Neji so that he could beat him up for what he did to Hinata! Now that Sasuke was going to fight him, the chances of them actually meeting in the tournament were low… But then, he'd wanted to fight Sasuke too, hadn't he?

Gaah! This was too much to think about right now! Naruto pushed aside his thoughts for later as Hayate coughed out the next match.

*COUGH!* "Second, Sabaku no Gaara…"

'Geez,' Naruto thought as he watched a creepy smile grow on Gaara's face. After seeing this guy very nearly kill Fuzzy Eyebrows, and in such a high-level battle that he surely would have lost in too, he REALLY didn't envy whoever was to match up against him. Poor Naruto still hadn't worked out the way those numbers were used to decide opponents.

"…and Uzumaki Naruto."

Ah, Naruto. The unlucky sap he might have to visit in the hospital afterward.

…Wait a second.

"HEY! THAT'S ME!"

Everyone turned to stare at the blond incredulously, thanks to his screaming, including the disappointed looking Gaara.

'You, Uzumaki… Your blood isn't worth staining Mother's sand, but I will crush you all the same, and then, Uchiha…'

"Yes, that's you. Do you have a problem with that?" sounded Hayate, who was annoyed from being interrupted.

That make-up wearing boy who used dolls sniggered, and even Neji strained not to chuckle.

Realizing how he must look and sound, Naruto quickly did his best to diffuse the situation.

"Ehhh… sorry! I'm just excited!" he chuckled slightly in an obviously forced way.

The blond girl with the fan sniffed at him in disdain, almost sending him into another pout but he was really too tired to bother after his strenuous, drawn-out fight with Kiba. They all returned their attention to Hayate who was calling the next matches, with the exception of Gaara, who continued to stare holes into him.

Naruto felt a faint sag where he supposed his stomach should be; an all too familiar feeling, same as the one he'd had in the forest of death when that snake-guy nearly killed him and his team. It was the feeling of absolute, unmitigated fear.

Fuzzy Eyebrows, with all his power, almost enough to beat a jounin, hadn't been able to land a single scratch on the redhead from Suna. How was he supposed to face THOSE odds in the final matches when he wasn't even a half-grade ninja, as so many people had pointed out to him lately?

He didn't realize everyone had already left until he heard his name called out.

"Naruto!"

"Huh?" he broke from his stupor to turn to the one shouting his name. '…Sakura-chan?' When did she get here?

"Listen, Naruto…" she almost seemed to hesitate a bit. Naruto idly wondered why.

"G-good luck in your match," she put on a fake smile that he saw through almost immediately. "You'll probably be busy training from it, and we won't see each other that much, so I just wanted you to know that."

Actually, what Sakura was doing was akin to paying her last respects to her teammate. She'd seen what Gaara could do, and she didn't think that Naruto even came close to having a snowball's chance in hell against that psychotic ninja. Sure, she wasn't close to the ramen fanatic, but she knew there were times she was particularly horrible to him and she might not sleep easy, knowing he had gone off to his death on a bad note with her. Hence the need to say a somewhat acceptable goodbye to him.

"Ha! I don't need luck, Sasuke-teme does!"

Sakura let the affront to her crush slide just this once due to the circumstances of the situation. Any other time she would have slugged the blond in front of her.

"Besides, I'm going to win this exam, just you wait and see! I never go back on my word, that's my nindo!" he exclaimed, pumping a fist.

Well, when Naruto got going, he really got going, so Sakura didn't bother asking how exactly he was going to do that.

"Okay, that's good. I have to go now, I need to see if Sasuke-kun is doing better. Kakashi-sensei said he's taking him away to train him for the finals, so I might not have another chance to see him until then."

Naruto just gave her one of his face-splitting grins, promptly dismissing her. Inside, though, he was seething.

'Why does Kakashi-sensei want to take Sasuke away to train, he couldn't have forgotten about me, could he?'

"Yo!" a friendly greeting behind the Uzumaki assuaged his fears. Kakashi-sensei hadn't forgotten him…

Kakashi looked down from his book at his hopeful-looking student and sighed, almost regretting what he was about to do.

It was a tough decision, choosing to take Sasuke to train him personally for the month before the final tournament. He hadn't thought that Naruto would end up having to fight Gaara, but what had happened had happened, and it wouldn't change just because he wanted it to. At least if it was Sasuke he knew the boy would have had a real chance against the redhead after a month of polishing up his skills, but on the other hand, Naruto…

There was no easy way to say it. A month just wasn't enough.

Putting away his book for an added air of seriousness, Kakashi made sure to look squarely into Naruto's eyes/eye.

"Naruto, I'm just going to give it to you straight,"

The said blond leaned closer, almost dreading what he was about to hear but, at the same time, remaining optimistic.

"You should quit your match before you start."

Naruto's lower jaw hung slightly but Kakashi pressed on.

"As you are now you would need at least a year of hard training to have a chance of beating Gaara. I'm sorry to say this, but you just can't do it."

Naruto lowered his head, hiding his face with his long, yellow bangs. Kakashi-sensei… told him to give up? Before the fight even started?

The boy's body shook slightly but Kakashi didn't know if it was from despair or anger.

"I hope you recognize this as a situation where you have to run away to live to fight another day."

Naruto gave off an almost imperceptible growl that Kakashi barely caught.

"Sasuke has a chance of winning against his opponent, and that means he has a shot at making chuunin. If you're a true teammate, you won't be selfish and you'll support him because has a higher chance of succeeding than you do. Remember, this isn't your last chuunin exam and there will be others you can take with Sakura."

Naruto tried really hard not to get mad. He knew that everything Kakashi was saying was true, but… he was Uzumaki Naruto! He'd promised to win that tournament! He'd sworn to beat some sense into Neji on Hinata's blood! He'd promised Sasuke a good fight…

"Kakashi-sensei…"

The man was right. He knew he was far away from even being close to Gaara's level, heck, he still hadn't caught up to Sasuke and Sakura yet! Sasuke was leagues ahead in, well, everything! Sakura was smarter than he would ever be, so he didn't even bother comparing himself to her.

On the outside, Naruto lied to everyone. He'd led everybody who laid eyes on him to believe he was happy when he really wasn't. He'd shouted to everyone he met about how he would become the greatest hokage, even his enemies! But the one thing he never, ever did was lie to himself. He knew he should run… run to fight another day, but there was just this feeling he couldn't shrug off. Like he was SUPPOSED to find a way to defeat Gaara, and not just for his own good. There was a burning determination swelling up inside him that he was almost afraid of, should he lose control of it.

Kakashi waited patiently for Naruto to answer, taking note of the way the blond's hands squeezed tightly into fists as his body shook even more. He unconsciously readied himself should the Kyuubi's chakra be released in his growing rage.

He was surprised though when, all of a sudden, the racking ceased and Naruto slowly looked up into his eye with a fierce gaze that nearly made him take a step back. Kakashi gasped slightly. He had seen that exact same look on…

"You should train Sasuke with as much as he can take, sensei, because I'm not running away!" Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly, turning the normally cheerful blue into a cold steel gaze. "I WILL fight Gaara, and I WILL beat him! I won't take back my word, and I won't become a coward! Just like I promised, I'll live with no regrets!"

For a moment, Kakashi half-believed the short blond could actually do it, and he nearly succumbed on seeing the drive that shone through his student, but he had to be firm.

"Naruto! If you go out on that arena the day of the match, I'll be forced step in and have it called off! I won't let you fight!" 'I won't let another of my teammates die!'

The blond simply chuckled at his sensei, ignoring the burning stare into his head. How many times had people told him he couldn't do something? When he was at the academy, they told him he would never advance in class. They swallowed their words only two weeks after that. Then, they told him he wouldn't graduate. It took three failures and very close to a fourth, but he did it in the end, and shut them all up.

When he came to the chuunin exams, he had been told, specifically, that he had no talent and would only be seeing the finals from the stands, or not at all. Now, he was scheduled to fight what might be the strongest gennin in the entire exam in front of a whole crowd of onlookers.

Now his teacher, someone he actually looked up to, was telling him he could go no further.

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto glared at the man who was just getting ready to remove the kid-gloves and seriously slap some sense into his student. "If YOU get into that arena, then I'll drag you out myself and fight anyway!"

"…That's how it's going to be then?"

Naruto nodded firmly. Kakashi could see he would not be moved by any threats, suggestions or bribes.

Alright then… Experience was the best teacher in these things. If Naruto was going to be stubborn now, he would surely change his tune a few minutes into the match once he saw there was nothing he could do to shake Gaara.

Kakashi nodded acknowledgement to Naruto's pledge, but mentally noted to let the boy try his luck for maybe a minute or two before he actually stepped in to stop the fight. It might even give the gaki a good lesson in following his superior's orders.

Naruto was being serious when he said everything he did. He had a whole month to figure something out, and he'd be damned if anyone stood in his way in that time.

Uzumaki Naruto doesn't go back on his words and he would make sure everyone remembered it!

**Someone please continue this story for me. I've always wanted to know what Naruto would do in this scenario, and if you know anyone who's ever written this, tafadhali(please) PM me with a username.**

**BTW, this is NOT a challenge. Let it be known.**


	2. Chapter 2

'…Stupid, stupid, stupid!'

Naruto mentally slapped himself upside the head as he made his way back to his apartment.

'What the hell was I thinking, saying those things to Kakashi-sensei?'

If he was honest with himself, Naruto would admit that he knew the jounin was simply looking out for him, just as he always had.

But then he had to go and tell him off like that. If he was lucky, Kakashi might be willing to accept him on the team after the exams were over, but he had just lost whatever relationship he had with the man.

What exactly did he have to prove anyway?

Naruto threw open the door to his room and stormed in, slamming it shut once he'd crossed the threshold and, finally, he plopped himself on the bed.

Really, what was he trying to prove? That he wasn't a failure? That he wasn't a complete loss since day one?

Or maybe that he wasn't the Kyuubi?

He snorted at the thought. The fuzzy menace didn't have anything to do with this, and it never did. The truth was he was a terrible student, and an awful ninja.

Yes, he admitted it. He was a piss-poor excuse of a shinobi. The blond grimaced, wondering exactly when it had sunk through his thick skin that he wasn't invincible.

'Actually,' he pondered with a finger scratching his chin. 'It all started with the mission to Wave.'

When the Demon Brothers charged him with that chain, his life had literally flashed before his eyes. Naruto could key that as what really set the ball rolling.

The next instance was when Zabuza had trapped Kakashi and very nearly killed them all. Oh yes, he'd come up with a plan with Sasuke to free their sensei, but that didn't change the fact that they would all be in their graves at the moment if the former Mist-nin had been serious from the beginning.

The fight with Haku would have been an eye-opener had he actually thought about it afterwards, but he had been too preoccupied with Sasuke's near-death to think about what he'd done wrong.

In the end, it all came down to two undeniable facts.

All his fights had been reliant on luck and his teammates.

He would die if he faced Gaara as he was.

Naruto groaned as he let his head fall back on his pillow. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

_…Fight. Win.___The little voice within him that had always steered him in whatever direction he took made itself known. It had been extremely useful when he was doing his pranks, always letting him know when he was about to be caught, or when he was running down a dead-end street.

Now though, it was guiding him down an impossible route.

…_Never given up before._

'But my life wasn't in danger all those other times… Well, it was, but I wasn't thinking then.'

…_Can win. Always did._

'I had my teammates to rely on at the time.'

…_Didn't before. Still won._

Naruto bolted upright like he'd been struck by lightning.

It was true. Before he'd ever joined team seven, he was always getting into fights with other kids, and sometimes adults, especially after pranking them. But he could only remember one time when he'd actually lost, though that was because he was defending somebody else at the time.

Come to think of it, after becoming a gennin he'd only really been in danger when defending someone; Iruka, that Little Girl he could no longer remember, Tazuna, Kakashi, Tsunami, Sasuke, Sakura…

Did that mean he was weaker when fighting for them?

Gaara did say something about him being strongest because he fought for himself. It kind of made sense when he thought of it that way…

So, there was a chance he could win then?

"But how?" he said to no one in particular. "How am I going to beat Gaara?"

…And everyone else after Gaara for that matter?

Naruto's ocean-blue eyes fell to his hands, as if hoping the answers would be there somewhere.

He needed to think about this more carefully.

What was different in those times he fought for himself than the times he fought for others?

For one thing, he didn't have to worry about collateral damage, so it meant he could cut loose even more.

And the fights or chases had always been planned beforehand…

'Wait, that's it!' A grin grew so wide on his face it threatened to split it.

That was it all along!

People usually thought he was the kind of guy who flew by the seat of his pants, but every struggle he took on had always been carefully thought out in his mind.

It was just harder to do when he wasn't the only one involved, because of all the variables others presented. It wasn't like he knew them as well as he knew himself.

Naruto was emboldened by his revelation. There was never a time a prank had defeated him, nor a fight that had his honor or survival at stake. Even when Mizuki had tricked him into stealing the forbidden scroll, he had managed, only tipping off the Hokage though it was to be expected of the most powerful ninja in the village.

He could beat Gaara… The prospect had him tingling in excitement.

And he had a whole month to get his act together.

xxx

The kunai was really a most marvelous invention.

No other ninja tool was more versatile, or more dependable than the hand-length black steel knife.

Naruto knew this from personal experience and from reading a great number of journals and stories written by former ninja. They were, after all, his number one source of strategy, technique and training methods.

But the kunai would not be enough to penetrate Gaara's defenses. Sure, he could hack away until the sand gave in, but he doubted he would even be allowed to get close enough to use his favorite weapon.

Blunt force also wasn't an option with it. A blow delivered from the ringed handle of a kunai was enough to crush a man's skull (it had been proven, time and again), but from what he'd seen of Lee's fight, Gaara's body could absorb and nullify immense pressure.

He needed something more effective than that.

Naruto puzzled over the problem as he sat in the lotus position, on the underside of a tree-branch to improve his chakra control like one of his journals advised.

Funny, he had always disregarded such things as impossible until Kakashi had shown him that they were very much in the realm of possibility. To think he had such a vast wealth of knowledge waiting to be tapped into, but took no notice of it because he'd believed they were simply fairy tales.

He was never making that mistake again.

…But back to the present problem.

'I need something to cut through the sand,' Naruto thought as he twiddled his thumbs, trying his best not to lose concentration and plunge head-first into the ground below. 'I need something sharp or had enough.'

From past experiences, the blonde knew that something as small as a pebble could have devastating force if thrown hard enough, so maybe he could rely on the kunai after all if he built enough speed to use it? It was definitely hard and pointy enough.

How to achieve that level of speed though was a quandary itself. He didn't have too much time to focus on building speed like Lee did…

How did Lee develop his speed in the first place?

'The weights,' he realized. 'After he dropped his weights, he got faster, so he must've had even heavier ones on him to be as fast as he was.'

So he could use weight training to gain the speed, but…

Naruto suspected that the problem with using weights was that one had to wait for his body to adjust to them.

And if there was one thing his body was good at, it was adjusting to foreign things, most likely a result of having the Kyuubi in him.

The blond decided that he would later try out the weight training to gain speed. With that, he supposed he could through the sand defenses to cut Gaara enough that the blood loss would render him weak. Somehow, he doubted it would be easy to knock him out. If the lines around his eyes were any indication, the violent gennin had a lot of experience with staying awake against his body's will.

So now that he knew of a way to bypass the sand and incapacitate the boy, he needed to think up a contingency plan in the case something went wrong.

He wouldn't leave much to chance again.

xxx

Two figures stood facing each other atop a rocky outcrop far outside of Konoha's walls. The taller of them had his arms crossed together in what he hoped was a stern look. The absence of his normally ever-present book spoke of how serious he was.

"Alright, Sasuke," Kakashi observed his student's expectant and excited expression with his lone eye. "Concerning your fight with Neji, the only thing I can help you with is training your sharingan to follow his movements."

"I don't need that," Sasuke said impatiently. "My eyes are already strong enough to take him on-"

"No," Kakashi interrupted. "You weren't present to watch the Hyuuga fighting in the preliminaries. If you were, you would be able to tell you need a higher evolved sharingan than the one you have now to predict the Jyuuken."

The black-haired boy huffed to himself. He would be getting the evolved state soon enough, perhaps even during the fight itself.

"Other than that, you might need the raw speed to match his, though with your adequate chakra control it won't be a problem."

Sasuke smirked under the praise.

"I have faith in your ability to defeat Neji, Sasuke," Kakashi started, "But that doesn't mean he won't be a pushover. He's called the genius of the Hyuuga for a reason, you know."

'So what? I'm called a genius myself.'

The jounin held up a finger, "The one you really have to worry about, though, is Gaara."

He then proceeded to take out a slip of paper from the pouch on the back of his hip. "His sand will prevent you from getting close, and even if you do, I doubt it's the only defense he has. That's why I'll be teaching you a jutsu that can tear down earth-type defenses. First, we need to test your elemental affinity with this paper…"

Sasuke was so enthralled at the prospect of learning a new jutsu that he missed the double meaning behind his sensei's words; that he expected Naruto to lose in his match enough to prepare his student for it.

"Good," Kakashi said as he saw the paper crinkle up in Sasuke's hand. "Your affinity's lightning. I'll be teaching you my one original technique, the Chidori."

xxx

Neji panted lightly as he took a break from punching the wooden training dummy. He'd been working himself to the bone in preparation for his fight with the Uchiha, and he was determined to make his name known everywhere as the Hyuuga to defeat the last sharingan user in the world.

But the best part, he thought with a smile, was that he would be spitting in the face of the Main House as he did it.

A lowly Branch member would do what the clan heiress was unable to.

'It is my fate to win that match.' Neji came dangerously close to grinning, but managed to control his emotions before they showed. Fate itself had arranged the monumental battle between the prodigies of two warring clans, just as fate itself would deliver him his victory. There was nothing Uchiha Sasuke could do that would change that.

Considering his break over, the lavender-eyed boy reactivated his byakugan and returned to smashing up the unfortunate training dummy.

xxx


End file.
